It's approaching mid-November, or at least it's approaching the mid-November postdoc deadlines, which means I have set aside my
I don't want to apply to any more jobs. I don't want to write any stupid statements of how I will teach your stupid fucking Great Books in a manner that is both mindblowingly original and yet deeply traditional and recognizably familiar to you the search committee. I don't even want to tell you about my own research any more. I do want to go back to doing it, though, which is why all these last little niggling deadlines are so damn annoying!
I got six hours of careful reading and annotation of my book project done on Tuesday, broken up with some rests and a nap. That is amazing dedication, for me. On Wednesday, with my various windows open to postdoc requirements and a blank sheet of paper before me, I got almost nothing done. Part of me is tempted to just send some half-assed crap, but the other part of me says that the people who will win these types of awards will have some carefully-crafted work of art of an application, and that I should do something amazing or nothing at all. You know which option I prefer.
In fact, while bitching and moaning and avoiding work on the postdocs I saw a late-posted ad for my field, and without even a break in my complaining I opened up my cv and diss abstract, opened up the copy of my letter that I had sent to a job very much like this one, went zip, zip on switching around some names and dates and zoom! emailed that fucker out in under a minute. See why I hate postdoc apps? Once the job materials are good I can apply for squillions of them just like that! But these damn "tell us how you would prepare a syllabus and teach a class for X theme and we get to pick the books" crap requirements ..... argh!
Can I just ignore these postdocs and not bother applying for these late-posting positions? Wahhhh! I hate this crap! I want to go back to doing what I love best, which is bitching and moaning about my own research and my writing struggles. These external annoyances just aren't fun.
4 comments:
There aren't even NEARLY that many jobs for me to apply to this year. I think there might have been between 60-70 Renaissance jobs last year, maybe a little fewer. I applied for 40. This year, there are under 30 jobs, and I'm applying for 6. I'm working too much, am 8 months pregnant, and am sick to death of the whole application process. I laughed loudly at "I don't want to write any stupid statements of how I will teach your stupid fucking Great Books in a manner that is both mindblowingly original and yet deeply traditional and recognizably familiar to you the search committee." Yes, I'm RIGHT there, too. This is my third year on the market, and I wonder how much longer I will have the strength to keep up this nonsense. Blerg.
Blerg is so right! Why am I even using words to describe this process! I should just express how I really feel by puking on the search committees.
May all the job seekers out there in the throes of such woes (oohhh, a rhyme!) find peace - and a great t-t job!
Unfortunately, puking on search committees might yield the same results as a standard interview. At least, that was MY experience last year. Sigh.
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